The wish to lead out one's lover must be a tribal feeling; the wish to be seen as loved is part of one's self-respect.

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary.

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.

Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.

Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak.

What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.

Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.